


Ghosts of Christmas Past

by Swump (Zelan)



Series: 12 Days of Whumpmas - VLD [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allergic reaction, Gen, Hypothermia, Mild Blood, Platonic Cuddling, VLD Whumpmas 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 22:56:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13017918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelan/pseuds/Swump
Summary: Pidge crash-lands in the middle of a blizzard, where the others can't get to her, and must fend for herself until help arrives.





	1. Chapter 1

"Pidge!? Pidge, where are you?"

Allura's calls went unheard and unanswered. Pidge's helmet lay inside the Green Lion, which had crash-landed on the planet's surface minutes ago.

Pidge herself lay facedown on the ice outside. She blinked her eyes open and stared at the blinding white world in front of her, struggling to gain her bearings.

She tried to remember what had happened first. The crash. She had taken her helmet off beforehand, so she could put her glasses back on and see the controls better. Then... she'd flown through Green's eyes before she'd gotten a chance.

Pidge tried to take stock of herself. She ached all over, probably from being thrown out of her lion, but her left side really stung. She put a hand to her side, wincing, and then brought it up to her face for a look. The red that dripped off of it confirmed her fears.

She also noticed how badly her hand was shaking. And just like that, the cold hit her all at once. A violent shudder ran up her spine, causing pain to shoot through the newly discovered wound. Her teeth clacked loudly, the only sound besides the howling of the blizzard around her.

The blizzard. Quiznak.

It was bad enough being injured and without her helmet - or her glasses. But in better conditions, she would have been able to get back to her lion and call for help. The whiteout made things more complicated.

Despite the rapidly stacking obstacles, Pidge tried to think rationally. She was cold, very cold, and that wasn't going to change anytime soon. The fact that she was rapidly losing blood wasn't helping.

Best-case scenario, Pidge would be able to find her lion, get some basic first aid, and contact the rest of the team for rescue, but she knew she couldn't count on that. Still, she couldn't stay put, either. She needed to stop the bleeding or it could kill her before the cold got a chance to. After that, she would need shelter to wait out the storm in, away from the wind and snow.

Mentally crossing her fingers for option one, the Green Lion, Pidge agonizingly pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and made her way forward, one trembling limb before the next.

Unfortunately for her, "forward" put the Green Lion further and further behind her.

\-----

"She's not answering." Allura's words were terse and frustrated. She turned to the other paladins with a frown. "What should we do?"

"Can't we just go down and look for her?" Keith asked.

Allura shook her head forlornly. "Not in these conditions. We wouldn't be able to land safely. We might even make things worse and land on top of her." Hunk cringed at the thought.

"I think the only thing we can do right now is wait," Shiro admitted, not looking happy about it. "We can keep on trying to contact her, but even if she could tell us her location, there's no way that we could reach her until this storm lets up." He sighed. "She's on her own down there."

The silence following his statement was heavy.

"It will be all right," Allura tried. "Pidge is resourceful. You all remember the time we got separated by the wormhole. She was brilliant then and she'll come through this time, too."

Allura didn't sound entirely convinced.

\-----

Pidge had no idea how far she had made it, or how long it had been, when she nearly crashed headfirst into a tree. The dark shape had loomed in front of her out of nowhere, and she stopped herself just in time.

She placed a shaking hand on the trunk, intending to feel her way around it, but what she felt made her pause.

Sap. Sticky sap.

Pidge grasped at the half-formed thoughts in her frozen, fuzzy mind. Sap was good. Why was sap good?

Bleeding. Stop bleeding.

Sap. Yes.

Pidge plucked off her torso armor - it was riddled with holes anyway - and plunged her right hand into the sap, pulling away a thick glob of it. She lifted her arm and slathered the dark, viscous liquid down as much of the wound as she could.

Almost immediately, her side began to twinge with an itching sensation. She paid no mind to it, going back for another handful.

By the time she had covered her entire wound, the itching had become something more akin to burning. Burning. She felt warm. It was nice, except for her side. That hurt. But laying in the snow helped. Already the sensation was fading. Her vision was fading, too, darkening around the edges. She was falling asleep, lying on the pillowy snow, surrounded by silence and slowly falling flakes.


	2. Chapter 2

"Anything?" Shiro asked over the comms.

"Not yet," Lance responded.

Hunk squinted at the landscape below him. The storm had stopped howling, but it was still snowing, and the planet below was almost entirely white.

Except for that dark spot over there. Trees?

Hunk swooped a bit lower in Yellow to get a good look. Yeah, it was a small cluster of trees that looked sort of like evergreen trees from back home, only purple. Everpurple trees. There was a small shape huddled at the edge of the copse, just within the shadows of the trees.

Hunk's eyes widened. Hands tightening on Yellow's controls, he brought his lion to the ground as quickly as he could.

He leapt out of his lion as soon as it touched down and hit the ground running. From this close, he could tell that the shape was definitely Pidge.

Heart in his throat, he dropped to his knees beside her motionless form. Pulling off his helmet, he leaned down to listen for breathing. For a few seconds, there was nothing, and tears pricked at his eyes, but then he made out the sound of what most have been the shallowest possible inhale.

She was alive. Pidge was still alive.

She wasn't in the clear yet, though. Hunk remembered hearing that people in more advanced stages of hypothermia simply stopped shivering, which meant that Pidge was in bad shape. He scooped her easily into his arms and, holding her close, carried her to the Yellow Lion.

Once inside, he deposited her right where the heat from Yellow's engine could be felt the most and begin stripping himself of his armor.

After he got down to his soft undersuit, he did the same for what was left of Pidge's armor and then curled his warm body around her freezing one. Any thoughts of awkwardness were banished when he felt just how unnaturally icy her small form was, so he curled himself tighter, rocking the both of them from side to side without realizing he was doing so.

After far too long, Pidge stirred a bit in his arms and started to shiver. Hunk closed his eyes in silent relief. She would be okay.

Relaxing his hold on her a bit, he pulled back to examine her for any other injuries. He spotted the dark line down her side and frowned. Probing it gently with his fingertips, he realized that it wasn't just dried blood congealed there - something else combined with the wound. He puzzled over it, even more confused when he noticed the same substance coating her hand, until he remembered the trees. If they were like Earth's evergreen trees, they probably produced sap. Pidge had used it to seal the wound.

A closer look at the area revealed that the skin around the cut was angry and inflamed, and probably would have caused Pidge a lot more pain if she'd been fully conscious. Hunk wasn't too worried about that, though; Pidge had been breathing steadily since being rescued, and the sap on her hand didn't seem to have any effect.

The chattering over the comms drew Hunk back to the present. His helmet, sitting a few feet away, had been relaying conversation the entire time, but a particular plea from Lance caught Hunk's attention.

"Hunk, c'mon man, not you too." Lance sounded pathetically broken up, and Hunk was flooded with guilt for not keeping the others updated.

He scooted over to where his helmet was and put it on. "Sorry about that, guys-" he began. Instantly, their desperate shouts morphed into joyous ones, punctuated by angry outbursts.

"Where were you?" Shiro thundered, sounding like he was at his breaking point.

"I found her."

Silence. Then, from Lance, "Is she...?"

"I think she'll be okay." The others collectively sighed with relief. "I think she had an allergic reaction-"

"A _what_?" Shiro sounded about ready to crawl through the comms to get to Hunk and Pidge. Hunk wouldn't have put it past him to find a way to do it.

"Mild. A _mild_ allergic reaction. No biggie. It probably saved her life, anyway." Hunk knew they would be wondering how that was possible, but there would be time to explain later. "Some of her armor is here at my location, near these purple trees."

"I can get that," Shiro said, still terse but seeming relieved that things were under control. "Keith, Lance, follow me to her last known location and then look for the Green Lion from there. She can't have gotten far from it on foot."

"You got it," Lance said, already sounding more upbeat.

"Hunk, you get Pidge back up to the castle. I'll meet you there in a bit."

"Roger." Hunk stood carefully to avoid jostling Pidge too much. Despite his care, she opened her eyes as soon as they were situated in his chair.

"Hey, Pidge," he said, overjoyed at the sight of her owlish amber eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Cold," she mumbled after a second, snuggling closer to him. It made piloting a little harder, but there was no way Hunk was going to push her away. He'd just have to steer carefully.

"S'it Christmas?" Her question caught him off guard.

"What?"

"Christmas," she repeated. "Got you a present, Matt."

Hunk didn't have the heart to tell her what was really going on. "We'll open presents tomorrow," he said lightly. "It's not time yet."

"'Course it is," she insisted. "It's tradition."

He smiled at her almost drunken slurring. "You know, Pidge, it's been so long since last Christmas that I've forgotten all of our traditions. Can you remind me?"

And so she latched her arms around his neck and she did. Hunk listened to her stories - of a new ornament for the tree each year, of Matt's famous December Prank (you never knew what day it was coming, but it always happened sooner or later), of her mother's cookie recipe that Pidge had tweaked to perfection. Hunk listened to her stories and memories through the rest of the ride to the castle. He listened as Allura and Coran ran frantically over to the two of them, Pidge held securely in his arms. He listened right up until the moment that Pidge was placed in a healing pod and went under for a long, peaceful sleep.


End file.
